Throughout his ten year career, the filmmaker and artist Narvir Singh (Punjabi, b. 1989 London, UK) has collaborated with key figures from a range of creative disciplines, experimenting with the relationship between poetry, visual art, music and theatre.

Is this really who I am?
How could I come from the land
Stained like blood on a White kurta,
who could’a

Taken the colourful beauty I seen in books,
The Green fields, Pink flowers,
Replaced with dark looks

Catching corruption caught Red handed
Blood inked Constitution
Planned it
when it was founded

They figure a way to escape the hands of justice
Trust this,
Silver beards on forefathers, must have rusted

Isn’t this the place the Ten Masters arose
Their scent filled the land like a Violet rose,

Now it’s a new game,
Destruction in the veins,
a heroin strain
Of light Brown dust,
Escaping is their only must

Forget having a Blackberry on an Orange signal
Or Air Tel, ah hell, please tell,
Me. You’re using the Bluetooth
To connect to deep Brown roots

But amongst all the darkness,
I close my eyes and I still see coloured light
I still see neighbours White teeth shining with kindness
I still find Golden temples, built-in their hearts
I still find Orange Nishaan flags fluttering forever

They say:
There’s no Black and Whites,
no wrongs or rights.
Need’a get used to the bitter-sweet
grey kinda life

Even when you seem to hate me and push me away,
Punjab, whatever the colour:
I love you each day.

It’s ironic how we hate, how others hate us,
But hate the others, how others hate us

You think it’s a must,
but it’s the Same loss of same trust
You see a black man on the news
And you automatically want him to lose
His freedom, his life, his self-respect,
Yet the jury hasn’t given a verdict yet

Yet, you already know ‘he did it’

As his heart is as dark,
as the skin protecting it,
born to fight discrimination
Yet our nation is inflicting it,

It’s funny…HA!

as you dislike black people,
But still wanna be treated as an equal,

The size of the crime is on the rise
You patronize, not empathize

You love a black guy if
He scores in the second half,
On yours and your teams behalf,

A bright smile at the win
you’re finally ignoring his skin
but
If you saw that same man
while you’re locking up your van
you might walk back
double check the lock
as him being a thief
won’t be a shock

You love a black man if he dances or raps
makes track after track
But sooner or later
your superiority is back
as now he’s off the stage
and off the page
you think you’re better looking
as your skins lighter

Hence you worry about a tan after a holiday
Making you scared of looking too dark n uglay.

It’s kinda funny…HA!

As India see Sikhs in the very same way
You’re the strongest soldiers, greatest dancers
and best carpenters n farmers

But poets? Artists? Intellectuals?

Nah that’s too complex
Because you’re dumb, young
and full of rum

is it the dumb media that left us dumb found
Or are we just dizzy from watching Disney?

We paint Sikh heroes
as whiter than pearls
with a pinkish hue
And the eyes are blue
and the Mughal is who
looks ten shades darker
Making truth harder,
to relate.

It’s kinda funny…HA!

As you hate them, how they hate us
no wonder, they hate us, like we hate them,

It’s like you’re rolling with the KKK
Instead of the 5Ks
But you’re doing it when you have both
Breaking your oath

It’s time we recognized… and finally realized
our fight is to win rights, for the marginalized

Find light in the dark,
like Rosa Parks,
Malcolm X and Dr.King,
Forget trying to win,

be willing to die
don’t die crying
die trying
Like the 9th Master.

It’s like we deserve all the hatred
from when we immigrated
Cuz we treat the new brothers
With the same hate, we hated

It’s like wherever we go,
whatever money trees we grow
We remember one thing:

White is good. Black is bad.
If that’s the case, I suppose brown is average.

It’s kinda funny…HA!

As you hate them, how they hate us
no wonder, they hate us, like we hate them,

I live for the father without a home
Who came from Punjab lost and alone
Struggling to upkeep a painful debt
Tried everything for his dreams
to connect

He was sleeping under a bridge in Heston
He always had one eye open when resting

So the Bollywood dream hits reality,
And is quickly revealed as a fallacy

Stays in a bubble, uses dope to cope
Hides his trouble, from faithful folk

To keep Punjab unaware he hides,
retreated, deleted from their lives,

So while you’re lying in your bed,
He’s try’na work out,
how he gonna get fed
Tonight.

VERSE TWO

I live for the woman suffering in silence

Every day is another day of domestic violence
Has a bruised temple, goes to the temple,
For relief and care, but leaves with stares,
Next week a bruised nose and everybody knows,
As gossip runs wild like a forest fire,
Shes looking for a level higher,
but her family…. full of liars,

Said they’d be there for whatever, whenever
Not so clever after all,
as they weren’t there at all,

Gave her husband everything he ever needed,
yet she still bleed-ed that night.
This time it just wouldn’t… stop.
Couldn’t be covered by the cloth,

Dreams ripped out of her heart,
left alone in the darkest of dark

VERSE THREE

I live for the kid straight out of school,

A kinda cool fool,
with a need for weed,
Or anything stronger,
Or anything wrong-er
For escapism.

Special occasions he finds some coke
Helps him cope, when running low on hope
Kinda like his father back in the day
when he first came to the UK
He sees hugs in the drugs,
Drinks in jugs, at a time,
helps him rewind to a happier time
Where confidence was outside the bottle,
Before his mum was throttled,
by his pops, Eyes popped,

Before he failed exams,
A steady hardworking man,
ready to win the world for fam

Now his addictions are too heavy
And his dad refuses to levy,
The debt and destruction
So he decides to jump

Will you catch him?

Or will you think he deserved it
And serve the kid
with insults like
‘crackhead was stupid’

The weird thing is,
all this tragedy
happened in the same family
Father, mother and son,
All labelled as dumb
by the very same community
Meant to save them from harm.

I see you from across the street,
You get closer and we’re about to meet,
I look over for a quick second,
I go for the nod, cause I reckon,
You’ll reply…by lookin’ me right in the eye.

We both have a turban on our head,
But instead, of breaking bread,
Your eyes look straight dead…forward
You serve a plate of distaste,
Almost embarrassed of another brother’s embrace,
So my nod and smile,
Still look wild for a while,
In this concrete jungle,
No time for pleasantries,
when running through rubble.

Why should I have to think twice?
When I’m just trying to be nice.

After I reflect, I remember to never expect,
As a polite nod, is not always met.

So my fellow sardar brother,
Why not respond to another,
Sardar from afar,
Don’t see me as an other
We both fight the same battles daily,
Same exact ones since we were babies,
Probably even from the same town,
We even wear the same crown,
Yet your default response is to… look straight down and frown.

Basically, I just wanna say,
If you’re having a bad day,
Say hi, fateh, hey,
Smile back at smiles
Nod back at nods,
Lets mend social wrongs
And prove we can all get along… as one.